Resource Scheduling

Overview

Your events can be linked to "resources" in DayBack; a resource can be anything you need to schedule--people, equipment, rooms--or a mix of those. And an event can even be linked to more than one resource.

Resources are shown on the Resource view of the calendar as columns, where you can drag events from one resource to another to balance your schedule.

Here's a short overview of how resources work and how to set them up. Though this video focuses on resources in DayBack for Salesforce, the main ideas are the same for all calendars in DayBack:

Here are some links to some of the other topics mentioned in that video:

• Calendar Analytics: charting the schedule against your goals
• Mapping the Resource Field in Salesforce: selecting a field to use for your resources
• Calendar Actions: scripting the creation of resources and folders
• Implementation Packages: getting help customizing DayBack

Multi-Day Resource Scheduling

The Resources tab in the upper right of DayBack offers several options for the views shown above, including the option to scan across multiple days at once. This is very useful for balancing your workload.

And if you end up with columns that are too narrow, remember that you can always collapse the sidebar to get some more room.

You can also make more room by showing fewer resource columns and paging through your resources. In the example below, we're filtering to show five resources but have elected to show only three columns. Clicking the arrows on either side of "Resource" lets us page through them:

Breakout View

This version of Horizon view lets you work at longer time scales while focussing on what’s scheduled for each resource. More info and a video of breakout in action are here:  Breakout by Resource – balancing your workload.

Adding, Removing, and Sorting Resources

The list of possible resources is maintained on the filters tab, where you can create and rename resources. Resouces created here are available for all the users in your group.

In some cases, DayBack will create a list of resources for you, as it does in Salesforce, where you'll find a list of your users and admins waiting for you when you first install DayBack in your org. After this first run, resources are disconnected from your users and maintained by hand. This can be nice as the list of resources need not match your actual users, and it allows you to create resources that aren't users: resources like conference rooms, vehicles, or business processes.

Automating the Creation of Resources & Folders

If you have so many resources that maintaining them is onerous, or your resources change very frequently, DayBack can query your Salesforce Org, Basecamp Group, or another database for a list of resources and folders. This can also be useful if you'd like to present different users with different lists of resources: for example, showing a sales manager just the people in their territory.

These queries are run as custom calendar actions when DayBack starts up. Learn how to create these actions here, or we can create them for you as part of an implementation package.

Adding resource abbreviations (short names)

When trying to view lots of resource columns, it can be helpful to show abbreviated resource names. So when you elect to show more than twenty resource columns at a time, DayBack will display the resource's abbreviation instead of its whole name. 

Folders

By putting your resources into folders, you can quickly filter at the folder level, showing or hiding all the resources in a folder at once. If you'd like the same resource in more than one folder, create a second entry for the same resource name, placing each in their own folder. Note that the  "none" column cannot be placed into a folder.

Appointment Slots

All of the examples above have schedulers scanning for gaps in their schedules. But sometimes, gaps only tell part of the story. The appointment, job, or work order may have additional criteria that aren't readily apparent, like cleaning or prep time, additional resources, or skill matching.

in these cases, you likely want DayBack to suggest only those slots, resources, and time windows that match your criteria. Here's one example of what that can look like.

For more information on DayBack's recommendation engine, see the additional screenshots and movies here: Recommending Appointment Slots.

Going Further

Resources in Salesforce

By default, DayBack will use an item's owner as its resource. But when you map your objects' fields, you can specify a field in your events table to use for resources: when the value in that field matches a value in this resources list, DayBack will draw the event in that resources column.

FileMaker Specific

What if I'm using the ID instead of the resource name to link resources and events?

DayBack requires the field you've mapped to "Resource" to be the  name of your resource, but if you're using IDs as well, you can set up your ID field to lookup the resource's ID based on the name entered in the field you've mapped to "Resource."